David Ellis - Breach of Trust

I tossed it back. “I have dinner first,” I reminded him. “You don’t get to listen to that.”

That really made Lee’s night. It meant he had to wait around for me until after dinner to hand off FeeBee.

I took the short elevator ride down, thinking about the dwindling number of days I had to solve three murders. I’d never considered failure an option. I always figured I would sit tight and strike when the moment came. Now I was beginning to wonder if time would run out.

I also realized I was looking forward to seeing Essie Ramirez for dinner tonight.

And then the elevator door opened, and who was exiting another elevator but one Shauna Tasker. She was doubly surprised, first because we hadn’t seen much of each other lately, and second because she obviously had come from our office, and I hadn’t. She first raised her eyebrows in mock surprise and then wrinkled her brow in confusion.

“Hey,” I said. Then, “Met with a new client.”

“Oh? Who?”

It then occurred to me that I’d have to name someone in this building-not necessarily on the fourth floor, from where I’d come, but somewhere. And I had almost no idea who else was in this building. I can bob and weave with the best of them, but I didn’t want to do it with Shauna.

I paused, made a face and waved off the question for a stall, hoping that she’d let it go. She can read me pretty well, but she blew it off. “We saw you on TV the other night,” she said. “Governor Snow was speaking at some rally?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Getting into politics now?” she asked.

“Oh, not really. Just thought it would be fun to see it. What are you up to tonight?”

Then I thought of what I was doing tonight, dinner with Essie Ramirez, and for some reason I didn’t want to share that with her.

“Having dinner with Roger,” she said. “Want to come?”

“I’ll pass. But I need to meet him soon.”

She seemed to find that statement odd, probably the lack of a sarcastic jab. We were becoming more formal, and it felt weird.

“Nice coat,” I said. She was wearing a white winter coat that I hadn’t seen before. I was losing track of this lady.

“Roger,” she said.

“Ah, okay,” I said, teasing. “And was there an occasion for such an extravagant gesture?”

“Oh. . ” She seemed reluctant to answer. For a moment I thought she was going to tell me they’d gotten engaged or something. And then it hit me.

“Oh, shit,” I said, smacking my palm against my head. “Oh, Shauna-”

“No worries.”

Her birthday. Two days ago. I’d forgotten Shauna’s birthday. Now I felt like a complete putz.

“You’ve been busy,” she said. “And gone. We had to sweep your office for cobwebs.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Jesus, Shauna, am I an asshole.” “I won’t argue. But I forgive you.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’ll make sure of that.” She winked at me and we walked through the doors, into the cool evening air. She stopped and appraised me. “You okay in there?” she asked.

“Just grand.”

She still had those probing eyes that could see through whatever roadblocks I threw up. But she wasn’t going to challenge me. She kissed my cheek and was off.

I suddenly felt hollow. I felt alone. I’d more or less completely lost touch with Shauna. It was excusable. Hell, it was necessary, I thought. I needed to keep her as far away from what I was doing as possible. And it was reparable, at least in theory-I’d make it up to her when this undercover gig was over. Problem was, this guy Roger was filling the void in the interim.

The other problem was, Shauna didn’t appear to be as bothered about it as I was. She seemed to be moving on, with Roger’s hand in hers.

Essie Ramirez was waiting for me at the bar, nursing a glass of wine and studying the yuppie dinner crowd. I watched her for a moment before I made my approach. She looked the part of a young professional in the city-hair pulled back, blue suit, simple jewelry-but it occurred to me that Essie was out of her element. She’d been raising two kids and hadn’t worked outside of the home for probably a decade. This could have been intimidating for her, but I got the sense that it was more exciting than anything.

She told me about her new job as a paralegal at my old firm, Paul Riley’s shop. She told me about her kids. I thought she was rebounding, now with a reliable paycheck and some time passed since Ernesto’s death. Then again, we were keeping it on fairly safe topics. She didn’t talk about how much she missed her husband. I didn’t talk about what I’d been up to.

She took the check from the waiter after we’d finished our coffee.

“You notice,” she said, “that I didn’t ask you about your search for the truth.”

“I noticed.” I smiled. “I’m going to figure it out. I’m getting close.”

She nodded, appraising me with those dark, shiny eyes. “I want you to. I do. I might have sounded like I didn’t before. I just don’t want you to get hurt doing so. That’s all.”

“I understand.”

“If I can ask,” she said. “What do you plan to do when you figure it out?”

I told her the truth. “I don’t know.”

She accepted that. She was willingly staying in the dark, not asking for details. She probably assumed, correctly, that if I’d wanted to share, I’d have done so by now.

“Another question, if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Shoot.”

“Why have you never told me that you lost your wife and daughter recently?”

It was true. I hadn’t. And I’d forgotten that Essie was now working at my former law firm, where the first mention of my name would have elicited that information.

“Well, anyway, I’m very sorry,” she said. “You’ve suffered. I had no idea. When you were standing outside my house on Christmas Day-”

“It’s not a problem, Essie.”

“This happened-near the time I lost Ernesto?” she asked.

“The same day, actually,” I said. “The reason I didn’t drive my wife and daughter to my in-laws’ house is because I was waiting for Ernesto to call me. So she drove without me.”

“Ah.” I hate pity, and I was seeing it all over Essie’s face. “So you put the two things together, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

“You blame yourself for-”

“Why don’t we just drop it, Essie,” I said, dropping my hands down on the table to indicate finality.

She placed a hand over her heart. “I have a knack for being direct.”

I blew out a breath. “It’s okay. I like that about you.”

“Oh, Jason. Jason, you can’t do that to yourself.”

I didn’t answer. An awkward span of time passed. Essie counted out cash and placed it with the check. She couldn’t have very much money to her name, but she’d be insulted if I offered to pay. This was how she wanted it.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said. “But you didn’t owe me.”

Her eyes flashed up at me. A strand of hair slipped out of her clip and curled around her cheek. She was debating whether to say something. She was searching me for a reaction, for a sign. I knew what I was thinking, but not what I was conveying. Something powerful was moving within me, a connection to Essie. Maybe it was just this joint tragedy we shared, like families who bond after losing their loved ones in a plane crash or something. I didn’t know. All I knew for certain was that she was looking into my eyes, and I was looking back, and neither of us seemed inclined to retreat.

“Do you think I asked you to dinner because I thought I owed you?”

That sounded like a dangerous question for me to answer, so I didn’t. There must have been a thousand love songs, and even more romantic comedies, built around this premise. Two people recovering from the loss of their spouses who find each other and rebuild their lives. Look, I couldn’t deny an attraction to Essie, and it appeared that the feeling was mutual. And I felt like I’d crossed a bridge recently. I could swallow the idea of another woman in my life, at least in some fashion. But not this. I couldn’t separate Essie from her husband, from guilt and anger. And I couldn’t think of her in a casual way, a one-nighter or anything even close to that.